Star Trek:Odyssey 25:Chimes at Midnight
by rylansato
Summary: Captain Allensworth gets a visit from Temporal Investigations, regarding his trip into the past after encountering a ship from the 22nd century that is emanating Triolic waves.
1. Triolic Waves

Star Trek: Odyssey: Chimes at Midnight

The USS Alexandria ran alongside the Excelsior class USS Crazy Horse near Deneva. Two men beamed aboard the Alexandria. They wore grey and black suits and headed for the bridge. One was taller with dark hair and the shorter one had blonde hair. They had no smiles on their faces for they meant business.

Commander Merriell sat in the center seat on the bridge. He was watching over things as Captain Allensworth sat in his ready room. He heard the turbolift doors swish open and he swiveled around to see who was stepping onto the bridge. He was a bit taken back by who he saw but then he realized who they two men were. He stood up to greet the two men.

"You must be from the Department of Temporal Investigations. I'm Commander Merriell."

"I'm Dulmur." The blonde haired one said.

"Lucsly." The taller one said.

"Where's Captain Allensworth?" Dulmur asked.

"He's in his ready room." Merriell said stepping aside allowing them to walk through. As they approached the doors to the ready room, Merriell stepped up to the engineering console where Lieutenant Commander Zofchak and his wife, Hoshi were standing.

"They must be here for what happened last week." Merriell said.

This was the third time that Temporal Investigations had come to the Alexandria. The first was when The Alexandria had gone back to an alternate 2165 and brought back multiple crewmembers of the NX-01 Enterprise. The second time was when Captain Allensworth, Commander Merriell and Lieutenant Commander Zofchak went back in time through the Guardian of Forever to stop an agent of the Terran Empire from killing Captain Kirk during the Khitomer crisis. They didn't even bother investigating the incident when Q sent the bridge crew back to different brutal periods in Earth's history.

Captain Allensworth sat in his ready room when the chime sounded. "Come in." He said. The doors opened and the two agents from Temporal Investigations stepped in. "Ah gentlemen, please sit down."

"Tell us, Captain. Why did you and your crew go back in time?" Dulmur asked.

Allensworth leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers as his elbows rested on the chair's armrests. "I'll tell you it wasn't a pre-destination paradox."

"That's good. We hate those." Lucsly said.

"This will take time to explain though." Allensworth said.

"Is that a joke, Captain?" Dulmur asked.

Allensworth looked up at them innocently. "No, it's not."

"We hate those too." Lucsly said.

"On stardate: 45959.1, the crew of the Enterprise-D was informed of the head of one of their officers in a cave underneath San Francisco. Their investigation led them to Devidia Two and the Federation's first encounter with the Devidians and Triolic waves. We were near the Romulan Neutral Zone in the Devron sector when our sensors picked up a large amount of Triolic waves."

FLASHBACK

"Sir," Ra'chel spoke up as her eyes read the Ops console. "Sensors are picking up large concentration of Triolic waves."

"Triolic waves?" Allensworth said standing up from his command chair. He approached the Ops station and looked over Ra'chel's shoulder at the sensor readings. "What is causing them?"

"Undetermined. However, I am picking up something at the source of the triolic waves." Ra'chel said. "It looks like a starship."

"Romulan?"

Ra'chel shook her head. "It's putting off a Federation warp signature."

"What ship is it?" Merriell asked standing up.

"USS…Challenger."

"I thought they were on assignment to the Donatu Sector." Allensworth said.

"Not that Challenger." Ra'chel said. "This Challenger is an NX-class."

"The NX-oh-three?" Dustin asked. "That ship was launched in twenty-one fifty-five but it was destroyed when the captain activated the self-destruct sequence to destroy a Romulan warbird."

"If that's the case, then what is it doing here?" Allensworth asked. "Has it been a drift all this time?"

"Maybe it was captured and it was falsely reported of the captain setting the self-destruct." Nycz said.

"It's a possibility." Allensworth said.

"If that's the case then why go to the trouble of saying the ship was destroyed?" McKenzie asked.

"So Starfleet would not go looking for it." Merriell said. "If there was a Starfleet ship still out there in Romulan hands then Starfleet would send its ships out to get it.

"Regardless of anything that happened in the past, the ship is here now and we must figure out why there are Triolic waves emanating from it." Allensworth said. He lowered his face to Johnson. "Ra'chel, are there any life signs aboard."

Ra'chel entered the commands on her control board and then shook her head. "Sensors are having difficulty penetrating the Triolic waves, Captain. However, the only system that seems to be running is life support. However, even if someone was alive over there then long term exposure to Triolic waves would have deleterious effects on living tissue. Only species with microcentrum cell membranes are immune to the effects."

"That would also suggest that these things are shapeshifters." Merriell said.

"The only time that Starfleet has ever encountered Trolic waves was in 2368." Dustin said leaning on his engineering console. "More specifically Devidia Two in the Marrab Sector. It could mean that the Devidians are involved."

"Could it be possible that the Devidians are time traveling again and they pulled an entire starship into this time period?" Merriell asked.

"Only if there were enough Triolic waves." Ra'chel said. "So far, Triolic waves have only been found on Devidia Two and in a cavern on Earth that was connected to Devidia Two by a temporal door."

"That temporal door was closed by the crew of the Enterprise-D who used photon torpedoes that were modified with phase discriminators." Dustin said.

"Well, there's only one way to find out." Allensworth said. He turned to his first officer. "Alex, I want you to lead an away team over and investigate."

Alex nodded and headed for the turbolift. "McKenzie, Ra'chel, Dustin, Hoshi. Doctor Plumley, meet us in transporter room three."

"On my way." The doctor said through the intercom.

The six members of the away team walked into the transporter room. Once they had checked their gear and had deemed themselves ready to beam over, they stepped up into the transporter chamber.

"Beam us onto the bridge, Chief." Merriell said.

"Locked on to the bridge." The transporter chief said.

"Energize." Merriell said.

All six members of the away team dematerialized from the transporter room in a swirling blue sparkling light.


	2. Captain's Log

The six members of the away team rematerialized on the bridge of the Challenger. Bodies in old blue full jumpsuit Earth Starfleet uniforms lied in different areas of the bridge. The bridges of NX class starships had an uncomfortable look and feel to them. As bridges progressed through the years, they seemed to be less "cold" to which was probably due to the fact that crewmembers were away from their planetary home for a lot longer periods of time in the 23rd and 24th centuries in comparison to the crews of starships of the 22nd century. After serving on the bridge of a 24th century starship, Hoshi could not imagine going back to a 22nd century bridge. Doctor Plumley stepped over to one of the bodies and scanned it with her tricorder.

The captain of the Challenger was slumped back into his chair with his mouth slightly open. The weapons officer on the captain's right was slumped over his console. The helmsman who was in front of the captain, lied at the captain's feet and the science and communications officers also lied on the ground. Hoshi felt a bit strange to be back on the bridge of an NX class ship. She stepped over the body of the communications officer and sat down at the communications station. That was her station while she served aboard the NX-01 Enterprise. Dustin noticed the look on her face and approached her.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah. It's just weird being on an NX class ship, even if it's not Enterprise."

"Commander." Plumley said. Merriell gave his attention to the chief medical officer. "The nervous systems of these bodies have been depleted of electro-chemical energy."

"Sounds like the Devidians." Merriell said.

"And here's another thing. These bodies have not been dead for long." Plumley said.

"That would mean the Devidians are pulling people from time." Merriell said. "Let's check the Captain's logs."

Merriell and Plumley walked into an adjoining room off of the left side of the bridge, which was the captain's ready room. The first officer sat down at the desk and activated the computer.

"Apparently the ship wasn't been adrift long because the computers are still working." Plumley said.

Merriell pressed a few buttons and then a male's voice came from the speakers. "Captain's Starlog: March 21st, 2156: Our battle with the Romulans has left this ship without communications or warp drive. Most of the engineering crew was killed in the attack including our chief engineer. Our communication relay is completely destroyed and we have to find spare parts on other planets to repair our damages."

"That explains why Starfleet presumed them destroyed." Merriell said. "They went into battle but never reported in." He pressed another button to go on to the next log.

"Captain's Starlog: April 2nd, 2156: We were fortunate enough to stop near a planet and able to repair our warp drive. We had to practically rebuild the warp engine. The crewmembers acting as engineers report they'll be able to bring the warp engines back online within the hour. My crew has done well with our depleted numbers. Hopefully, we'll be able to make it home with no more incidents."

"So they're on their way home." Merriell said as he pressed another button.

"Captain's Starlog: April 3rd, 2156: The makeshift warp drive has been emanating a type of radiation that we have never encountered before. Our chief medical officer has determined that prolonged exposure to this radiation can be harmful."

"There's our Triolic waves." Plumley said. The next log activated.

"Captain's Starlog: Supplemental: We've had to take our warp drive off line due to the radiation coming from it. However, there have been reports of sightings of ghostly figures. I have not seen these ghosts myself but I do feel there is some truth behind these reports. I have a suspicion that they are related to the radiation coming from the warp drive. On another note, there have been a few deaths among the crew. Our chief medical officer reports their electro-chemical energy has been depleted and is stumped on how that is possible."

Merriell looked up at Plumley. "Sounds like the Devidians handiwork. There's one more log."

"Captain's Starlog: Supplemental: Most of the crew is dead. There aren't many of us left. These ghosts or whatever they are, are killing the crew and our phase pistols seem to not have much of an effect. We will not last the trip home. The remaining crewmembers have left messages for their loved ones when this ship makes it home…if this ship makes it home."

The final log ended and Merriell stood up from his chair. "Now we know the Devidians did this to the crew." Merriell said.

"They must've killed them then brought the ship into the present." Plumley said.

The two of them walked out of the captain's ready room to see McKenzie and Zofchak hunched over the tactical station with perplexed looks on their faces.

"Is something wrong?" Merriell asked.

"We brought internal sensors online," Zofchak said. "And it I can't tell but if I'm reading this right we're reading another life form on the ship."

"Where?"

"E Deck."

"Why are you having difficulty figuring out if someone is down there or not?" Merriell asked.

"Because the sensors are going on and off and sometimes it reads no life forms and sometimes it does." Zofchak replied.

"Hoshi, open up communications channel on that deck."

"Aye, sir." She said. She knew how to fluently operate the communications station since that was her station on Enterprise. "Channel open, sir."

"This is Commander Alex Merriell of the starship Alexandria. Is anyone down there?"

A female's voice came over the intercom. "Are you Human?"

Merriell looked at his team. Ra'chel nodded to him giving him the okay to refer to her as human since she was half. "Mostly yeah."

"Oh thank God." The girl said. "I need help down here. I've been fighting off these ghost things for days but I don't know how long I can hold out. They appear and then disappear. Please hurry down here before…..oh no. They're back." The female stopped talking but left the channel open. The away team could hear the sounds of a phase pistol firing. Suddenly, the woman screamed and then the channel closed.

"We need to get to E Deck now." Merriell said.


	3. Ghostly Images

With the turbolifts deactivated, the away team had to climb down the turboshaft to E deck. Luckily for them, the turbolift was further down the shaft and they could climb straight down to E deck. They pried the door open and stepped into the barely illuminated deck. The only thing that illuminated the corridors were the away team's wrist mounted duel bulb flashlights. They slowly proceeded through the corridor, looking for the woman they talked to through the comm. link.

"Sato. McKenzie. You two know NX class corridors better than any of us. Where is the communication panel that woman was talking through?" Merriell asked.

People still referred to Hoshi by her maiden name so that they wouldn't get confused to who they were referring.

"It's right up ahead, sir." McKenzie said.

They continued moving forward until they found the communication panel. They found the woman lying on the ground below the panel. The woman wore the standard blue 22nd century Starfleet blue jumpsuit with lieutenant pips on the right shoulder just above the corner where the vertical and horizontal division color lines met. This girl had the command gold stripes on her uniform. The uniforms of the 22nd century didn't really stand out when it came to divisions.

The uniforms were all the same with the exception of the color lines on both shoulders that curved from the shoulder blade; around the arm to the collar bone then the line went vertical to connect both ends of the line. That was the only way one could tell which division a person was in; other than that, the uniforms were identical. It was slightly similar to the late 23rd century uniforms where the uniforms were not separated by division but by rank. All of the uniforms were identical except for the latch that fastens the front of the uniform and the turtleneck; those were colored by rank and not division. The late 24th century uniforms with the grey shoulders with black bodies and the division colored turtleneck underneath as well as the color stripes on the cuffs could also be compared to the 22nd century uniforms for their subtle showing of divisions but those were easier to differentiate division.

Plumley walked over to the body and examined her with a tricorder. After a few seconds of scanning the body, Doctor Plumley stood up and closed her tricorder.

"Just like the other ones, Commander. Her electro-chemical energy has been depleted." Plumley said.

Suddenly, blue light flashed all around the away team. On the other end of the corridor, Zofchak saw the outline of a bluish white ghastly figure floating away from them and then it went down a corridor on the right.

"Did anyone else see that?" Zofchak asked.

"I did." Ra'chel said. "What was that?"

"My guess would be a Devidian." Zofchak said.

"I thought that Devidians are out of phase with us. Normally we can't see them without a subspace force field tuned with a highly sensitive phase discriminator. We obviously don't have one, so how can we see them?"

"There is something here on this ship that has attracted them, causing them to build a nest here. However, I have no idea what that would be." Zofchak said.

"In his log, the captain had mentioned that their newly rebuilt engine core was putting of an unknown type of radiation. That's when they started seeing ghostly images." Merriell said. "The engine could've put off Triolic waves and attracted the Devidans to the ship."

"And with enough Triolic waves, the Devidians could travel through time to different areas that have a slight concentration of Triolic waves." Dustin said. The chief engineer pulled out his tricorder and held it in front of him. "The concentration of Triolic waves has seemed to have increased the deeper into the ship we've gone."

"Let's head to the engine room and see what we can figure out." Merriell said. The first officer tapped his comm. badge. "Merriell to Alexandria."

"Go ahead." Allensworth said from the other side.

"We've spotted our culprit. There's no mistaking it anymore. It is the Devidians. We're proceeding down to the engine room to see if we can figure out the exact source of the Triolic waves."

"Acknowledged. Proceed with caution, Allensworth out."

It wasn't long before the away team reached the engine room. On their way down to the engine room, the corridors lit up with the same haunting blue light they witnessed before seeing the Devidian. Zofchak held his tricorder in front of the horizontal engine core. "I am picking up a large amount of Triolic waves from the engine core. It's the biggest concentration of Triolic waves yet."

"What do you suggest, Dustin?" Merriell asked.

Zofchak let out a small sigh as he looked around the engine room. He wanted to explore the area and possibly the entire ship but due to current circumstances, he knew that would not be possible. "We'll have to destroy the ship."

"There's no other way to get rid of these Triolic waves?" Hoshi asked.

Dustin shook his head. "No. The Challenger crew even shut down their engines to stop their exposure to the waves but that didn't even work. Once activated, it seemed that the Triolic waves continued to build, my only idea is to destroy the ship."

"How would we go about doing that?" Ra'chel asked.

"We modify some photon torpedoes with some phase discriminators and that should do the trick."

"We should do that as soon as possible." Merriell said. "As soon as we get back…"

Merriell stopped in mid sentence when more blue light flashed around them and a horde of ghostly Devidians surrounded them. The away team instinctively drew their phasers. Merriell slapped his comm. badge.

"ALEXANDRIA, EMERGENCY BEAM OUT!"

Allensworth stood up from his chair. "Transporter room, do you have them?"

"Negative, sir." The transporter chief said through the comm. system. "Something is interfering with the pattern lock. I can't lock onto them, sir."

Allensworth didn't like the sound of that. He stared at the floating derelict in front of his ship trying to figure out a way to save his officers.


	4. Modified Photon Torpedoes

The turbolift doors to the bridge opened and Lieutenant Commander Kazarick rushed onto the bridge and headed over to the engineering station. It wasn't too often that Kazarick took over at the bridge engineering station but she had been monitoring what was going on over on the other starship incase Alpha team was needed. When she suspected that there would be trouble, she headed for the bridge. After entering a few commands, she looked up at the captain.

"Captain, I believe I can get the away team back by boosting the annular confinement beam and locking onto the minerals in their bone tissue."

"Do it." Allensworth said.

Her fingers had begun to perform the procedure just before her captain gave her the okay to do so. She guessed he would've agreed to do it anyway.

The away team bunched together with their backs to one another, firing phasers at the surrounding Devidians. Orange beams with subtle blue streaks lashed out from the phasers towards the floating entities. The beams struck the aliens in the chest but to no observable effect. The group became closer together and now were shoulder to shoulder with the Devidians closing in.

They all could feel the attempts by the Alexandria trying to beam them back. The swirling light of the transporter beam surrounded them multiple times with failed attempts to dematerialize them. The feeling of the transporter effect lasted about a half of a second before it failed. With each transporter wave gave a sense of hope but then that hope would die down when the transporter feeling went away.

As Alex fired his phaser, he felt another transporter wave begin to take him but this was different. It felt like it was coming from within him and it lasted longer than the multiple attempts prior. Finally he, along with the rest of the away team was whisked away in a swirling blue light.

Moments later, the away team rematerialized in the transporter room in the same position they were in on the derelict ship. When they were released from the confines on the transporter beam, they all holstered their phasers and headed to the bridge.

It wasn't long before the away team emerged from the turbolift and stepped onto the bridge. Allensworth turned to face his officers.

"Report." He said.

"Its official, the Devidians are responsible for this." Merriell said.

"We picked up large amounts of Triolic waves within the engine core." Zofchak said. "I suggest we modify a few photon torpedoes with some phase discriminators and that should destroy any portal the Devidians are using as well as any Triolic waves."

"Why can't we just use standard weapons to destroy the ship?" Nycz asked.

"If we use standard weapons, the ship will be gone but the Devidians will remain as well as the Triolic waves." Zofchak said. "If we modify our weapons with phase discriminators then we can completely eliminate the Triolic waves and the Devidians."

"How long will it take?" Allensworth asked.

"A couple of hours." Zofchak replied.

"Make it so." Allensworth said.

Dustin pointed to Hilary on his way to the turbolift. "Kazarick, you're with me."

Kazarick stepped out from behind the engineering station and followed her superior into the turbolift. The two engineers disappeared from sight when the doors closed.

Hours later, Zofchak appeared back on the bridge to report his status on the modified torpedoes. "Sir, the torpedoes are ready."

"Excellent." Allensworth said.

"Sir," Ra'chel said. "I'm picking large amounts of Triolic activity from within the ship."

"The Devidians must be time traveling again."

"McKenzie, arm photon torpedoes and fire."

"Aye, sir." She said as she entered the commands into the tactical console.

Three torpedoes launched out of the Alexandria's engineering launcher towards the helpless Earth Starfleet starship. The first torpedo slammed into hull just starboard of the deflector dish, the second struck in front of the bridge and the third struck the port catamaran that connected the saucer section to the nacelle strut.

The explosions caused a chain reaction within the ship and ultimately caused the ship to explode into a ball of flames. Small pieces of debris struck the Alexandria's shields but caused no damage.

"Hopefully, that will end the Devidian problem." Dowey said.

"Not likely." Ra'chel said. "I'm still reading a large amount of Triolic waves."

"That shouldn't happen." Dustin said. "The waves should be gone."

"I'm picking up a massive flux within the waves. The same type of flux I picked up just before we fired those torpedoes." Ra'chel said.

Allensworth came over and looked at the Ops control board. "What kind of flux?"

Before Ra'chel could respond, a bright white light began to flash in front of the ship. It flashed a couple of times before remaining open.

"It's a door way the Devidians use to travel through time." Merriell said.

"Back us off, Dowey, nice and slow." Allensworth said.

Dowey pressed a few buttons on his console but the ship did not respond to his commands. "Sir, helm is not responding." Suddenly, the ship jolted nearly causing everyone to fall to the deck.

"Sir, we're being pulled in." Ra'chel said.

Allensworth wasn't sure if they would feel anything going through the portal but just in case, he grabbed a hold of the back of Ra'chel's chair. "All hands, brace for impact."

The giant bluish-white portal sucked in the giant Sovereign class starship and its crew. The portal closed only moments after the Alexandria disappeared through its event horizion.


	5. The Plan

Allensworth picked himself off the deck as he looked around to see the condition of his bridge crew. The trip through the portal's event horizon had been a little rough. The ship had been through worse but it was still rough enough for it to knock anyone standing off their feet. Other crewmembers were getting up or helping others get to their feet. Once he stood straight up, he noticed the view screen showed nothing but static.

"Report." Allensworth said.

Ra'chel pressed a few buttons on her console. "Sensors are coming back online. This isn't right. According to the navigational computer, we're over fifty light years from our previous position."

"What's our position?" Allensworth asked. "And get the view screen back."

Ra'chel entered more commands into the Operations console. "Fascinating." She said, allowing her Vulcan side to come out. "We're in the Terran System." As she spoke, the view screen cleared up and showed the rotating blue planet that spawned the human race.

"Earth." Allensworth said.

"However, according to the readings I'm getting from the atmosphere, I'd say we're in the early twenty-first century." Ra'chel said.

"Early twenty-first century?" Merriell asked. "What could be happening here that the Devidians are taking advantage of?" Alex turned towards Zofchak. "Do you know of anything in this time period?"

Dustin shook his head. "The only one that comes to mind is the H1N1 pandemic. North America had the most amount of deaths from this outbreak so we could start our search there. When the Devidians first came to Earth they were covering their tracks with the cholera pandemic in the late nineteenth century."

"Could they be doing it again?" Nycz asked.

"More than likely." Allensworth said turning to his operations officer. "Ra'chel, scan the North American continent to see if you pick up any Triolic waves."

"Aye, sir." She said as she scanned the area. A few moments passed before she spoke again. "Sir, I'm picking up a large amount of Triolic waves in the San Francisco area."

"It could be the same cave they used when they first came back in time." Dustin said. "That's the only place I can think of that would be putting off Triolic waves."

"We should destroy that cave so the Devidians don't come back to Earth." McKenzie said.

"That wouldn't be advisable." Dustin said. Everyone looked at the chief engineer as to why he was against destroying the cave. "That cave will be the same cave used for a future mission when the crew of the Enterprise-D went back in time to the late nineteenth century. That cave holds vital evidence useful to Captain Picard and his crew that will lead them to the Devidians. If we destroy the cave we will destroy everything down there and the crew of the Enterprise will never be led to Devidia Two to handle the Devidian threat, thus changing our past and this timeline's future."

"What piece of evidence down there is so important that would cause Starfleet to investigate it?" Nycz asked.

"The head of Lieutenant Commander Data." Zofchak said.

"How did….I'm not even going to ask because I'll just be more confused." Nycz said.

Convinced, Allensworth proceeded to explain the rest of the mission's details. "We're going to beam down in teams. Gather crewmembers that you think would be helpful in this situation. The temporal prime directive applies; I don't want a visit from Temporal Investigations when we get home because one of us changed the past in some way."

"We change the past all the time." Zofchak said. "It's like a weekend activity for us."

Allensworth slightly grinned at Dustin's comment but had to keep his professional image. He then looked at the rotating planet. "Ra'chel, what is the exact year we arrived."

"Two thousand ten." Ra'chel said.

Dustin then turned to his chief engineer. "Dustin, what can you tell us about this time period."

"This is a period between the Eugenics wars that ended in nineteen ninety-six and the third world war that started in twenty twenty-six. The Bell Riots occurred in twenty twenty-four but nothing really happened in twenty-ten specifically other than the United States are in a poor economic state."

"Let's move out." Allensworth said heading towards the turbolift. "Computer, early twenty-first century clothing."

A short time later, the final members of the large away team materialized behind a building. Allensworth, Merriell and McKenzie were the first to beam down. Allensworth gave the okay for more members to beam down once McKenzie deemed the area safe and clear for transport. The rest of the away team included Zofchak, Sato, Nycz, Dowey, Johnson, Dowler, Kazarick, Plumley, and Czambel.

They all were in clothing that was consistent with what people wore in the early 21st century. Luckily, all but Johnson were human so they could fit in easily. Johnson was only half human but her Vulcan ears stuck out so she had to wear a hat that covered her ears.

Merriell had a map of the area replicated and held it out for all to see as Allensworth spoke. "We'll split up into four teams of three. "Merriell, Dowey and Johnson will be on team two. Zofchak, Plumley and Sato will be team three. McKenzie, Nycz and Czambel will be team four and myself, Kazarick and Dowler will be team one."

The team members all moved into their respective groups, still positioned around the map. Allensworth gave instruction while pointing to different areas of the map. Merriell's group was instructed to head north towards the Golden Gate Bridge, Zofchak's group was told to head to the hospitals, McKenzie's group was told to head east towards Mission Bay, and Allensworth was heading southeast.

"Set your tricorders to pick up Triolic waves and then tap your comm. badges to alert the rest of us. Do not try and face these things alone, they will rob you of your very life force. We've lost enough members of our senior staff and I am not going to lose any more." Allensworth said. "Any questions." No one said anything and after giving them their chance Allensworth spoke up again. "All right, let's move out."

The four three man teams headed off in their separate directions.


	6. The Hospital

Plumley, Zofchak and Sato entered their third hospital of the day. Their first two registered no results and they hoped that this one would produce something. Plumley had requested the computer to outfit her with the outfit of a 21st century doctor, knowing that she'd probably be sent to investigate the hospitals. She was right. Zofchak and Sato followed closely behind her, following her lead.

"It would be odd for someone to notice you two checking out patient charts so you two will be patrolling the hospital while I go around and talk with the other doctors and nurses." Plumley said.

"Okay Doctor, but be careful." Zofchak said.

"Don't worry about me, Commander. I can handle myself." Plumley reassured.

Plumely walked in one direction as Zofchak and Sato walked off in another.

Meanwhile, Captain Allensworth, Lieutenant Commander Kazarick and Lieutenant Dowler cautiously entered the cave where Triolic waves were reported last. Allensworth looked around the cave as he stepped down into the large cavern. No one had been in the cave since the late 1800s. Dowler and Kazarick pulled out their tricorders and scanned the area. As they were doing that, Allensworth noticed the head of Commander Data and made a mental note of not trying to disturb anything in the cave.

"Captain," Dowler said. Allensworth walked over to her to listen to her report. "There is a slight trace of Triolic waves but not as nearly enough as there should be if there were Devidians using the cave again."

"So, you're saying that no one has been here in ages and that includes the Devidians?" Kazarick asked.

Dowler nodded. "My guess is that they're using something else to travel through time."

"Well, if it isn't this cave, then what would it be?" Kazarick asked. "I'm not picking up any other evidence of Triolic waves in the area." She said glancing at her tricorder.

Suddenly, Allensworth's comm. badge chirped. "Merriell to Allensworth." The captain tapped it to respond to his first officer. "Go ahead, Commander."

"I think we found what we're looking for." Merriell said.

"Good. Is the area secure for transport?" Allensworth asked.

'Yes, sir. McKenzie's team just beamed in."

"We'll be there momentarily. What about Plumley's team?"

"I believe they were in the middle of something. Plumley told us to stand by."

"Understood. We're on our way." Allensworth tapped his badge again. "Allensworth the Alexandria. Prepare for site to site transport. Beam us directly to Commander Merriell's location."

"Stand by, sir." The transporter chief said. "Energizing."

The three of them were whisked away by a swirling curtain of light.

Meanwhile, Doctor Plumley walked through the halls of the hospital. She carried a chart with her and looked at it, making it seem as though she was busy, so that no one would bother her. She turned a corner and saw a patient lying in a stretcher. The patient was an older woman with white hair and covered in wrinkles.

"What's wrong, ma'am?" Plumley asked, allowing her caring nature to get the better of her.

"Liver dialysis."

"Dialysis? What is this, the dark ages?" Plumley said as she pulled a hypospray from her pocket. After pressing a few buttons on it, pressed it against the patient's neck. "Now if you have any problems, just call me."

Suddenly, her tricorder began beeping letting her know that it was picking up Triolic waves. She looked around and saw a pair of what appeared to be humans, one male and one female, dressed as doctors, walk into a patient's room.

"Merriell to Plumley. I think we found something. Please beam to our location."

"Stand by, Commander."

She tapped her comm. badge as she slowly approached the room and scanned the two doctors. Just as she thought, they were Devidians. She pressed a finger on her comm. badge to signal Zofchak and Sato. The male doctor pointed a heart monitor at the patient and a blue beam transferred from the patient to the device. She stepped away as if she did not notice them as they stepped out of the room and down the hallway.

She then scanned the patient who showed weak but steady heartbeat, suddenly stopped moving. Her tricorder registered no neural activity and showed the same signs as everyone else who she had encountered after they were killed by the Devidians.

She didn't want the Devidians to get away before Zofchak and Sato got there but she was also ordered not to approach them alone. Who was she to follow orders?

"Doctors," She said approaching them. "The patient in room four eighty-seven was showing signs of…" She stopped in mid sentence when the male doctor pointed the same device used to kill the patient earlier at her.

"DOCTOR!" A voice yelled from behind her. Plumley turned around to see Zofchak and Sato running up to her. Sato stopped next to her but Dustin grabbed the device and struggled with the male Devidian. Zofchak quickly struck the Devidian across the face with his elbow, knocking it backwards.

"What do you think you're doing?" Another voice said. This voice came from one of the nurses who ran up to the Devidian, obviously thinking it was a real doctor. The nurse was a short, physically fit, brown haired female with glasses. She looked back to the other nurses. "Get security up here."

"Get away from that." Dustin said. "You don't know what it will do to you."

"What are you talking about?" The nurse asked as she approached Dustin. "Wait, don't you work here?"

"What? No? We don't have time…"

"You do work here. You probably won't any longer now that you assaulted a doctor."

"Wait." Hoshi said. "Where's the female?"

Dustin saw that the female Devdian was nowhere to be seen. She had probably disappeared in the confusion with the nurse.

Suddenly, answering Hoshi's question, the female Devidian appeared next to Dustin. It backhanded him across the face and took the device from him as the impact from the blow stunned him. Hoshi drew her phaser and fired at the Devidian. The phaser beam slightly affected the Devidian as they stood close together and vanished.

An elevator opened and two hospital security guards walked out.

"Time to go." Dustin said as he pushed Plumley and Sato into a run.

"STOP!" One of the guards yelled.

The three of them sprinted down the hall and into an elevator. The elevator doors shut just as the guards got there. The two of them then opened the door to the stairwell and ran down them all the way to the first floor just in time to see the doors to the elevator open. All they saw was a sparkling blue light that faded away.


	7. Not Everything

Plumley, Zofchak and Sato materialized at Merriell's location. The first officer had an "about time" look on his face.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." Plumley said. "We ran into some Devidians. They disappeared and we don't know where they went."

"That just proves it even more." Merriell said. "Shortly before I contacted you, we picked up traces of Triolic waves that led us here to this place." Plumley, Sato and Zofchak looked behind them to see an old rundown observatory. "And right before you beamed in; there was another spike of Triolic waves. I think the Devidians have been coming here."

The newly arrived officers eyed the run down observatory that over saw the Pacific Ocean. Dustin lowered his head to think. He crossed one arm across his chest and rested the elbow of his other arm on it and tapped his chin with his finger. Allensworth noticed his chief engineer's posture.

"Commander?" He asked.

A few seconds passed before Zofchak responded. "There was an observatory back in the early twenty-first century that had been used for other means than looking at stars."

"What do you mean?" Czambel asked.

"It was used to keep an eye on the Asia continent during the Eugenics Wars, more specifically towards the tyrant known as Khan Noonien Singh."

"The same Khan that was later found cryogenically frozen by Captain Kirk?" Merriell asked.

Dustin nodded. "The same. He ruled about a quarter of the planet during the late nineties and the government of the United States became worried that Khan would later look their way."

"And that has what to do with Triolic waves?" Dowler asked.

Zofchak slightly turned his head towards the science division lieutenant. "Well Lieutenant, they used a certain observatory to do this and the equipment they used put off a certain type of radiation to extend the range of the observing equipment in said observatory. They got this equipment from a certain entrepreneur named Henry Starling."

Allensworth's attention was now peaked. "Henry Starling? The same Henry Starling that found a timeship from the future and then created a company based on the technology of that ship?"

"Yes, sir." Zofchak said.

"It's funny how things keep popping up." Allensworth said. The timeship Aeon went back in time and crashed on Earth after a brief battle with the USS Voyager. A graviton disruption pulls both ships into the past, the Aeon landed in California in the 1960's and Voyager was sent back into the 1990's but was able to maintain orbit. The Aeon was discovered by Henry Starling who used the technology to advance human technology and created a company called Chronowerx.

"Even after the Eugenics Wars ended they kept the equipment and used the observatory for what it was supposed to be used for." Zofchak said. "However, that didn't stop the radiation from emanating from the equipment and prolonged exposure to Triolic waves is fatal to humanoids. After a few deaths had occurred by an unexplainable radiation that they tracked back to this observatory, they shut it down." Zofchak then gestured toward the building. "And as you can see, no one is allowed near there."

"They haven't been able to stop the radiation even after shutting it down?" Dowey asked.

"Not if the equipment is getting turned back on by the Devidians so they can use the Triolic waves."

"What do we do?" McKenzie asked. "We can't just blow the place up."

"We can beam the equipment out into space and blow it up there." Merriell said.

"But we don't know exactly is putting off the waves and we can't beam the entire building out of its foundation." McKenzie countered.

"We'll have to use isolinear tags on each machine to allow for individual transport of what we need to beam out of there." Allensworth said. He looked at his officers, which he could see the ones who knew more on the matter were nodding in agreement. "Make it so."

A few hours had gone by and the crew had isolinear tags on each of the machines that were responsible for emanating Triolic waves. Zofchak and Merriell had set up pattern enhancers around the room to give the transporters a better lock on the equipment. The silver, cylinder shaped pieces of equipment surrounded the room with their lighted tips and light blue beams that connected them. Some of the officers had beamed back to the ship while Zofchak, Merriell, Allensworth and Johnson remained to set up as McKenzie and a few security officers stood watch.

"We're all set, Captain." Zofchak said.

"Good. Let's beam back to the ship" Allensworth said.

The captain was just about to tap his comm. badge when a blue light surrounded them and then faded to reveal that there were Devidians all around them. Allensworth slammed his hand against his comm. badge as his officers opened fire on the ghostly beings.

"ALEXANDRIA, GET US OUT OF HERE" Allensworth said. The away team dematerialized from the area and rematerialized on the transporter pad. The captain stepped down with urgency. "Now, beam the equipment into space."

"Aye, sir." The transporter chief said as the captain and the other bridge officers walked out of the transporter room.

Once on the bridge, Lieutenant McKenzie walked over to the tactical station as Johnson and Zofchak walked to their respective stations. Allensworth and Merriell stood close to navigation and ops stations.

"Sir," Johnson said. "The equipment has been beamed ten kilometers off the starboard bow."

"McKenzie," Allensworth said. "Lock weapons and fire."

McKenzie did as she was ordered and the weapons of the Alexandria lashed out and obliterated the equipment. Allensworth began walking towards his chair.

"Johnson, set calculations and coordinates for a slingshot around the sun." The captain said sitting down.

Dulmer and Lucsly stood there waiting for something else to be said but Captain Allensworth gestured that that was the end of the mission.

"That's it? You did nothing else except slingshot around the sun to return to the twenty-fourth century?" Dulmer asked.

Allensworth shook his head. "Nope, we returned home and that was it. It says so in my report."

"So it does." Dulmer said.

"If that is it then our business here is finished." Lucsly said standing up. His partner stood up as well extending his hand out to shake the captain's.

The two left Allensworth's ready room and a few moments later, the door chime sounded. Allensworth looked up from his padd at the door. "Come in." The doors opened and Commander Merriell walked in. "What can I do for you, Commander?"

"You didn't tell them what happened afterwards did you?" Merriell asked.

"I don't think they would have believed me if I did." Allensworth said.

"Are you ever going to tell them?" Alex asked.

Allensworth shrugged. "Maybe."

Alex nodded. "Okay, sir. I saw them walk out of here and they seemed pleasant and I don't think they would've been if you told them."

"Probably not, Commander."

Alex walked out of his captain's ready room as Allensworth leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall for a moment. He then stood up from his chair and stared out the window.

_I hope my decisions do not affect the future._

The End_  
_


End file.
